


Intervention III

by littlemiss_m



Series: Intervention [3]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Eating Disorders, Hospitals, Mental Health Issues, Prompto Argentum Needs a Hug, also physical health issues but i can't find a tag for that, gladio is there too but he's so minor i can't tag him, worried friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2018-10-03
Packaged: 2019-07-24 14:13:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16176728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlemiss_m/pseuds/littlemiss_m
Summary: Noctis knows better than to hope, because hoping has gotten them nowhere. Prompto's health continues to fail and though Noctis can see him collapsing into himself, there's next to nothing he can actually do to help him before that collapse actually happens.





	Intervention III

**Author's Note:**

> There will be a fourth installment in this series, written from Prompto's POV, but I haven't even started it yet and don't know when I'll be able to get to it. I've never had an ED myself which makes it difficult for me to get into Prompto's head, and since I always strive for realistic portrayals of such issues, I feel that I can't yet write a piece I'd be satisfied with. I'll have to do a lot of research to make the last fic happen, and unfortunately that's not gonna happen anytime soon.
> 
> That said, please enjoy reading! <3 If you haven't yet checked out the first two pieces, I would recommend doing so now, though it's in no way necessary :)

The clock above the blackboard ticks on and on and on, yet every time Noctis glances up at it, he feels like time has frozen solid. It doesn't help that the math teacher is droning on about – some subject or another, something completely new and too difficult for Noctis to grasp in just one lesson, and he knows he'll need Prompto's help in deciphering the topic. One thought of his best friend is enough to make his stomach clench painfully, nervously, because Prompto's in his own classroom across the school building and just having him out of sight is enough to make Noctis panic these days, his paranoia over Prompto's wellbeing mounting with each passing day as the matter of Prompto's declining health continues to stand still.

Noctis would give all his wealth and fame in exchange for the much-awaited change that still continues to elude him, but Bahamut is the opposite of a wish-granting god and he has no others to call upon, so that's the end of that. Would that he could, but...

The sound of the teacher clearing her throat brings Noctis back to reality and he startles, almost dropping his pen. The clock reads twelve minutes till bell and he's almost too antsy to sit still, but over the past days – past weeks – he's been made to sit down with his therapist more than once, her and Ignis and his father all alike telling him he can only do so much, he can only give so much, that him getting into a mess would only make Prompto feel worse – and they know them both too well because it's the last part that has him trying to cling to normalcy in the middle of everything else.

He has never felt this useless before. He's seen the same feelings on both Ignis and Gladio's faces, knows they're all thinking the same. When the bell rings, it's both a blessing and a curse at once, because lunch means Prompto but also _lunch_ , as in _food_ , and Noctis doesn't know how much longer he can watch his best friend struggle with the smallest snacks possible.

Instead of heading towards the cafeteria with most of his classmates, Noctis hurries to the stairs at the end of the corridor, skipping through the hallways until he reaches concrete steps leading to the rooftop. They're not supposed to go there, technically, but he's the prince and Prompto's – well, even the teachers must have noticed how sick he looks these days, and so there's no-one to stop them from this little breach of school code for the sake of privacy.

Like he expected, he finds Prompto already sitting where the sharp edges of the new building stand over the tiled roof sloping beneath. At the sound of Noctis' arrival, Prompto glances back over his shoulder, a bright-red apple in hand, before turning away wordlessly. Noctis tries his best to not let it get to him, tries to focuse on the apple instead – it's almost finished, and Prompto's still chewing on a mouthful when he reaches the ledge and sits down – but as is the norm now, he can't escape the budding anxiety twisting his stomach into knots.

”Hey,” he says, glancing at Prompto while digging through his bag for his own lunch. ”How was math?”

Prompto lets his hand drop with a sigh and Noctis looks up once more, gaze gliding past the apple core to the side of Prompto's face, the corner of an eye staring steadfast at the distance. ”Nice,” Prompto answers belatedly, then sighs again. ”I don't think we should be friends anymore.”

The words are a shock. There's no other way to describe the wash of ice-cold water skimming Noctis' skin, the skip of his heart, the furious twist of his stomach; it's shock, pure and simple, almost enough to make him drop his lunch box. ” _What_?” he chokes out, twisting to stare at his best friend with his mouth gaping out. ” _What_? What the _fuck_ Prompto, _why_ would – why would you even _say_ that–”

He trails off and Prompto shrugs at him, still refusing to meet his eyes. ”I mean,” Prompto says, speaking as if he were commenting on the weather, ”I'm just dragging you down, y'know? So I figured it'd be better if you could just, like, focus on important stuff and shit.”

Noctis can only shake his head in disbelief. ”What the fuck?” he echoes his earlier words, reaching out with one hand to grasp Prompto by the elbow. His fingers dig past the fabric of their school uniforms and, squeeze tight enough that Noctis is sure he'll leave bruises beneath his fingertips. ”What the heck, man? What's this all about?”

Ever since the day he, Ignis, and Gladio first sat down to talk about Prompto, he's been aware of the possibility of Prompto simply walking out of his life, but he always thought it would happen in the form of loud words and slamming doors. Never did he imagine a scene like this, Prompto calm as the perfectly blue sky behind his head, trying to explain his perceived lack of worth.

”No, Prom, no,” Noctis gasps when Prompto remains silent. ”This isn't – I'm not gonna give up on you so easy, you hear me? I'm not–”

”That's not what I said,” Prompto cuts in, brows furrowing in frustration. ”I said you should, because I'm not a good person to be around, and you don't deserve that. So you won't be, like, leaving me or anything, okay? I'm telling you to go.”

There's nothing Noctis can say to that, absolutely nothing. Another stunned shake of his head is all he can muster; he has no words, no thoughts, nothing but an overpowering sense of fear.

Next to him, Prompto is paler and thinner than ever before. He lets the apple drop and they both flinch as it thuds against the old clay tiles on its way down.

”No,” Noctis says slowly, still holding onto Prompto's elbow. ”No. I'm not doing that. I'm calling Ignis and we're going to my place and we're – talking about this, but I'm not. I'm not leaving you. I'm not letting go either. You're my best friend and I'll fucking fight you on that if I have to, Prom.”

There's no answer. Prompto hangs his head down and Noctis tries not to flinch away from the skin stretching taut over a knobby spine.

* * *

Ignis arrives before lunch is over and though Prompto doesn't fight them in getting into the car, he still curls against the door as soon as it closes behind him. Noctis watches him with itching eyes before glancing at the rear-view mirror to share a look with Ignis. He's scared, more so than he's been in weeks, and Prompto's sudden behavior is far more unsettling than he can handle.

”I want to go home,” Prompto says against the door when Ignis pulls out of the parking spot. Noctis shares another look with Ignis whose lips are thin and white on the mirror.

”I don't think that would be a good idea right now,” Ignis says carefully. A sudden bout of hysteria takes over Noctis when he realizes that they're more or less kidnapping Prompto, or probably at least holding him against his will, but other than a soft ' _oh_ ' there is no other reaction to Ignis' words. For a long while, the ride is silent, but then Prompto speaks up once more.

”I'm cold,” he murmurs, still speaking at the door. Though Noctis can see his apartment building just past the next intersection, Ignis turns the car around and heads in the other direction without a word. If Prompto notices this, he doesn't react to it.

* * *

Head hung down, Noctis sits alone in an empty hallway in the Citadel medical wing. Gladio's on his way but Noctis thinks he's probably going to leave before he gets here, doubts he can take another second of the quiet halls and the buzzing in his head and the faint echo of Prompto's cries that's been resounding in his head ever since Prompto realized they were they were headed. He cried when Ignis and Noctis helped him out of the car – almost carrying what little there was still left of him – but his struggles were weak and feeble, like the wings of a butterfly beating against a pair of human palms caging it inside.

Noctis knows they're doing the right thing, but still it hurts. When Ignis joins him on the benches, and Gladio a moment later, he shakes his head but leans into their touches all the same, listens as Ignis – very slowly, carefully, as if Noctis was as breakable as Prompto is – explains that Prompto is showing the first signs of heart failure.

* * *

Later, later, when he's finally given the okay – when he's picked at the lunch he never ate at school, when he's cried into his father's shoulder, when he's googled the meaning of heart failure and scared himself shitless in doing so – Noctis walks into Prompto's hospital room. They'll be keeping him there for a while, a nurse tells Noctis, hesitating because she doesn't want to let too much slip, and he's not actively resisting his hospitalization which is – a change, not what Noctis expected to hear, but he takes it along the feeling of a small sun blooming between his lungs, a bright hope he squashes almost instantly.

Prompto, when Noctis finally sees him, is a limp shadow on an impossibly large hospital bed. There's an IV in the crook of his left elbow, some monitors still attached to pasty skin peeking out from underneath his hospital clothes. It's the most skin Noctis has seen in – months, if not years, and the memory of Prompto's tanktops hits him like a hammer to the skull. He never noticed when they disappeared all of sudden.

It takes a while before Prompto notices him, or at least before he finds it necessary to react to Noctis' presence hovering in front of the closed door. Too busy staring at the windows, at the perfectly blue sky now taking on the first hues of the in-coming evening, Prompto makes him wait, the clock on the wall ticking on, but when he finally does turn, there's nothing on his face but the slackness of someone already dead.

”Hey,” Noctis croaks, clears his throat while stepping forward. He moves slowly, cautiously, almost irrationally scared of spooking Prompto, but the blond hardly reacts to him at all. ”Do you – do you mind if I sit with you for a moment?”

Again, it takes a moment, but Prompto shakes his head. He's not quite looking at Noctis but Noctis feels like he can't look at Prompto, either, doesn't want the memory of his best friend to be replaced by this – this _thing_ hidden under a mountain of blankets, still shivering from the cold. Carrying a wooden chair from the other side of the room to the bed gives him a moment, but then he has no choice to sit down.

Up close, Prompto looks even worse.

”So, uh...” Noctis murmurs, picking at his shirt sleeve. He chances a glance at Prompto and regrets it almost importantly, but somehow, through all his nerves and fears, there's a new determination _bubbling_ deep in his chest, and so he draws in a deep breath and tips his chin up once more. ”Prompto. Prompto, I – I'm really scared.”

Perhaps there was no need for him to speak, because as soon as he realizes he's staring straight at Prompto's eyes, he sees said eyes well up with tears as Prompto's entire face twists into a pained wail. He begins sobbing, almost completely out of blue, big, fat tears spilling down his gaunt face, and Noctis feels like he, too, might start crying any second now, se he rushes to grasp Prompto's hand where it's kneading the fluffed blankets.

”I don't wanna _be_ like this anymore,” Prompto bawls, face streaked with tears and snot. ”I don't, I don't – I don't wanna – _help me_ , Noct!”

The last of his words dissolve into sobs that do something awful to Noctis' already aching heart, and he's out of his chair before the movement registers in his mind. He clambers onto the bed and wraps around Prompto, who shakes and cries into his shoulder, and all Noctis can do is hold onto him while his own tears splash into tufts of golden blond hair. He's just as lost as he's been for the past weeks, but Prompto's words sounded too much like a promise and now he's unraveling, all the stress leaving him in the form of salty tear drops and choking gasps. He's not stupid enough to think this the end – he's watched Prompto worsen too much, too fast, since Ignis first spoke to him to think so – but it's _something_ , at least, a change from the old status quo. It's something, and so it's already more than they've had in months, and though it might not be enough to pull Prompto out of his illness, it's the start they've all been waiting for.

Or so Noctis hopes, anyways.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it! <3 You can find me on tumblr as @missymoth :)


End file.
